Humility and Humiliation

I'm reading Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd before seeing the movie this weekend, and I was struck last night by how often Farmer Oak's humility is mentioned. Moreover, it's often mentioned as one of his most positive attributes. And as I'm a word nerd, I started thinking about all the words related to humility. I know that it is good to be humble. But then why does it feel so awful to be humiliated? 

I had a day a couple weeks ago. One of those days. It seemed like I couldn't do anything right and was just doing one embarrassing thing after another. 

First I couldn't open the door at my (new) doctor's office. (The fact that it was my first visit is my only saving grace here.) I followed someone else in, so that was fine. But on the way out, I completely missed the fact that there was a green button next to the door that I had to press to release the lock. So I stood there for almost two minutes fiddling with the door and unable to open it. Finally, someone else had to leave, so she pressed the button and we both left. But before she came along, there were two or three people standing there just watching me struggle; perhaps they didn't want to embarrass me further by assuming I wouldn't figure it out on my own, but I mean, come on. When someone is struggling, help them.

Then I went to the post office to mail some letters back home. The woman behind the counter handed me some stamps, and in vain, I tried to pull the backing off of them to stick them on the envelopes. Eventually, the lady said "Oh. Love. That won't work. You need to lick them." Oops.

Finally, to top it all off, I returned home to a less-than-happy note from my roommate. It had been my turn to buy the laundry detergent, and it seems that I somehow bought fabric conditioner instead of detergent. To make matters worse, I had used the conditioner to wash a load of tea towels that of course hadn't come clean.

Suffice it to say that I was feeling a bit humiliated at the end of the day, and it was not a pleasant feeling. But as I've been reflecting on it this morning, I'm realizing that humiliation is not inherently negative; I think it depends on our frame of mind. When we make a mistake, when we do something silly, we are made humble. We are reminded that we are not perfect. Humiliation is just that--it is a check to our pride, a reminder of our imperfection, and therefore a reminder of our humanity. We can only be upset by humiliation if we are expecting ourselves to be perfect. If we can instead laugh at our mistakes, humiliation is far less about shame and far more about the fact that we are human and fallible. And for the Christians among us, humiliation is a handy reminder that the only perfect being is God, and He has come to save us from our imperfections.

So I don't think I'll exactly welcome silly mistakes with open arms, but when I next have one of those days, at least I'll be able to put it all into perspective.